Centennial Celebration Sponsorships Increase
ATLANTA, Ga., September 19, 2014- Sponsorships for the2015 TAPPI Centennial Celebration have reached nearly $790,000. This amount continues to grow as additional sponsors are added and TAPPI moves toward its goal of $1.5 million. Contributions go toward outreach activities and educational programs recognizing the 100th Anniversary of TAPPI.
“Sponsorship for the Centennial Celebration provides the financial support that will enable TAPPI to spread the century long story our industry has to tell,” said Larry N. Montague, president and CEO of TAPPI. “The year-long festivities will offer a variety of events and opportunities that will honor the industry's extremely proud past as well as highlight its promising and exciting future.”
The TAPPI Centennial Celebration will feature a series of outreach events and educational offerings showcasing the history of the global pulp, paper and packaging, and related industries as well as looking toward the future. Activities and items will include local PIMA and TAPPI section and student chapter events, a student competition, an online calendar highlighting innovations in the industry each day and a coffee table book “Celebrating a Century of Achievement”. The year-long celebration will be highlighted by a Gala dinner on April 20, 2015, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Major sponsors of the 2015 TAPPI Centennial Celebration include: Buckman (Centurion Sponsor); Nalco, NewPage and MWV (Platinum Sponsors); Sappi, Domtar and Valmet (Gold Sponsors); Dow Chemical, GL&V, Kadant, PCA, and Solenis (Silver Sponsors). Bronze sponsors include ABB, BrightKey, FM Global, Georgia-Pacific, Green Bay Packaging, Honeywell, Hood Container, Imerys, Ingredion, Jacobs Engineering, MICA, Optest Equipment Inc., Penford Products Co., Poyry, Soundview Paper, SUN Automation Group, Wausau and Yates. Supporting sponsors include Cascades Sonoco, Jedson Engineering, Kruger, Inc., Shepard Exhibition Services and SunTrust Bank.
Nalco Platinum Sponsor for TAPPI's 100th Anniversary
ATLANTA, Ga., September 26, 2014- TAPPI is pleased to announce Nalco, an Ecolab Company, is to be a Centennial Celebration Platinum sponsor. In addition to supporting the celebration, Nalco's contribution will help promote the future of global pulp, paper, packaging and related industries through student and young professional initiatives. The 100th Anniversary Celebration will feature a year-long series of outreach events and educational offerings showcasing the history of the industry as well as forthcoming advancements in technology.
“We appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this celebration, honoring the growth of the industry over the past 100 years and looking toward its future,” said Senior Vice President and General Manager of Nalco's Global Paper Division, Jeff Bulischeck. “For more than 90 successful years, Nalco has upheld a strong track record of bringing innovations to the global paper industry. Nalco is firmly committed to the development and sustainability of the industry through innovation and value delivery.”
“Nalco continues to be a key participant in the growth of our industry. Their efforts to serve as TAPPI members in addition to the many technical innovations Nalco contributes to papermaking chemistry and plant operations are significant factors for the continued growth and success of the industry,” said Larry N. Montague, TAPPI president and CEO. “We're very excited to have Nalco as a Platinum sponsor for TAPPI's 100th Anniversary Celebration.”
Many events, including the annual PaperCon conference, will be co-locating with the Centennial Celebration. The year's activities will include local PIMA and TAPPI section and student chapter events, a student competition, and publication of an online calendar highlighting industry innovations each day as well as a coffee table book: “Celebrating a Century of Achievement”. The celebration will be highlighted by a gala dinner on April 20, 2015, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
NewPage Platinum Sponsor for TAPPI's 100th Anniversary
ATLANTA, Ga., USA, September 26, 2014- TAPPI is pleased to announce NewPage is a Centennial Celebration Platinum sponsor. In addition to supporting the celebration, NewPage's contribution helps promote the future of global pulp, paper, packaging and related industries through student and young professional initiatives. The celebration will feature a year-long series of outreach events and educational offerings showcasing the history of the industry as well as highlighting forthcoming advancements in technology.
“NewPage has benefitted tremendously, as have multiple others, from the many contributions TAPPI has made to the growth and development of the pulp, paper and packaging industry over the last 100 years,” said George F. Martin, president and chief executive officer at NewPage. “TAPPI provides a wide range of educational and information services that have been key to the growth and development of our industry and our employees. We appreciate the opportunity to contribute to and be a part of this celebration highlighting TAPPI and our industry's proud history of innovation and sustainability and its bright future.”
Southworth Co.'s Paperlogic hopes innovative nanocellulose papers keep Turners Falls mill busy
Tiny fibers might turn into big business for Paperlogic, a unit of Southworth Co., as it searches for new products to keep its 120-year-old paper mill in Turners Falls busy and its workers employed as it exits the office paper business. Nano, which means one billionth, as in a billionth of a meter in size, is very very big in the technology world today: nanocomputers, nanomedicine and in the paper industry, nanocellulose nanofibrils.
Nanocellulose, said Ken Schelling, mill manager for Paperlogic in Turners Falls, is the same plant fibers paper makers have been using since the beginning of time. But now scientists are able to separate those fibers down until they are as small as they can be while still being cellulose. The company has received a $350,000 grant from the federal government and help from paper making equipment suppliers to start grinding wood pulp into nanofibers at its mill in Turners Falls. Schelling hopes to get the new equipment up and running in the first half of 2015.
For months, the mill has been experimenting using nanocellulose produced in a laboratory at the University of Maine. The equipment basically just tears the fibers apart, he said.
"It's breaking the fiber down to the molecular level," Schelling said.
Once scientists and engineers get the fibers that small, cellulose starts to take on some weird, but promising, properties.
If the pulp Paperlogic uses to make most of its paper looks like lumpy cottage cheese or oatmeal, liquefied nanocellulose from Maine looks like Cream of Wheat or like a gell. It flowed easily as Schelling poured some out onto a table and formed it into a low symmetrical glob. He said it will dry overnight into a hard, tough disc. Nanocellulose can absorb much more water than the regular pulped fiber. Made into paper, nanocellulose forms a tighter, smoother bond. Schelling can pull and rattle nancoelluslose paper made at the Turners Falls Mill. It is hard to tear. He takes an eyedropper from the mill's lab and gets the paper wet. Water stays bubbled up on the surface like it does on the finish of a new car.
Regular paper needs to be coated in order to shed water, grease or other fluids that well, Schelling said. PaperLogic Mill manager and technical director Kenneth Schelling holds a piece experimental nanofiber composite paper that is being developed at the company.JOHN SUCHOCKI / THE REPUBLICAN That makes nanocellulose a good choice to replace the parchment-type baking paper used in commercial bakeries and home kitchens. Nanocellulose wouldn't have to be coated with silicon or chromium. The nanocellulose paper would be biodegradable and environmentally favorable.
There are other uses like bandages and substrates for manufacturing. Nanocellulose paper is opaque and doesn't block light. That quality might lend itself to some practical uses. A University of Massachusetts Amherst professor wants to use nanocellulose paper as a substrate to print 3-D medical implants and other tiny machines. According to those in the paper industry, market forecasters covering nanotechnology and nanomaterials predict that by 2020 the nanocellulose market in North America alone will be worth $250 million. Paperlogic wants to be in on the ground floor of that business.
"People have been working with nanocellulose in laboratories for years. It is time to scale the technology up to manufacturing. I think we can be an important rung in that ladder," Schelling said. It is important for Schelling and Paperlogic to find something different. In 2012 Southworth Co. sold its venerable brand of business paper to Neenah Paper of Wisconsin. Some paper in the Southworth line is made in Turners Falls. But Schelling expects production to shift to Neenah's mills. Southworth has other products it plans to continue to make at Turners Falls, such as watercolor paper for artists or decor paper for laminated countertops or furniture. The mill has about 60 employees. "But no one is buying copy paper anymore, or at least not as much of it as they were," Schelling said.
The paper industry, once a big part of the Pioneer Valley's economic life, is holding on, and in some ways growing. Mohawk Fine Papers Inc. plans to employ 37 full-time workers at an envelope factory it plans to establish in South Hadley. There is also Erving Industries in Erving, the well-known Crane & Co., which makes products including currency paper in Dalton, and Onyx, a specialty paper company in South Lee. Hazen Paper has plants in Holyoke, Great Barrington and Osgood, Ind.
TAPPI Announces Young Professionals Top 20 Under 30 Winners
ATLANTA, Ga., USA, Feb. 4 - TAPPI is pleased to announce the winners of the Young Professionals Division's Top 20 Under 30 Contest. The contest was intended to recognize individuals under the age of 30 who are emerging leaders in the global pulp, paper, packaging and related industries.
A group of established TAPPI members reviewed the nomination forms and collaborated on selecting the winning individuals.
The Top 20 Young Professionals Under 30:
- Bradely Wright, Sawmill Superintendent at MWV in Phenix City, Alabama; 26 years old.
- Stephen Tjan, Paper Machine Technical Assistant at Green Bay Packaging in North Little Rock, Arkansas; 23 years old.
- David Thompson, Area Manager/Paper Industry Consultant at ChemTreat, Inc. in San Diego, California; 29 years old.
- Sneha Swaminathan, Scientist at Hollingsworth-Vose in West Groton, Massachusetts; 30 years old.
- Cody Stevens, Project Engineer at Weyerhauser in Savannah, Georgia; 27 years old.
- John Sly, Paper Mill Shift Supervisor at RockTenn in Seattle, Washington; 25 years old.
- Marshelle Slayton, Process Engineer at Sonoco in Appleton, Wisconsin; 24 years old.
- Jesse Shade, Process Engineer (REACH) at International Paper in Mansfield, Louisiana; 24 years old.
- Caleb Sargent, Sr. Boiler Process Engineer at MWV in Lexington, Virginia; 26 years old.
- Sudip Neupane, Innovation Lead at MWV in Evadale, Texas; 28 years old.
- Stephen Moses, Pulp Supervisor at Domtar in Ashdown, Arkansas; 26 years old.
- Melissa Kuo, Process Engineer at Clearwater Paper Corp. in Clarkston, Washington; 27 years old.
- Erin Jordan, MB Applications Specialist at Solenis in Moorseville, North Carolina; 27 years old.
- Eric Hanington, Chemical Additives/Core-Link Are Process Manager at International Paper in Blythewood, South Carolina; 28 years old.
- Sarah Dawkins, Chemical Process Design Group at O'Neil in Anderson, South Carolina; 25 years old.
- Omkar Chandorkar, Application Specialist - Research and Development at EcoSynthetix in Burlington, Ontario; 29 years old.
- Sabrina Burkhardt, Pulping and Bleaching Supervisor at Econotech in Delta, British Columbia; 26 years old.
- Stephanie Boyce, Research Scientist at Georgia Pacific in Neenah, Wisconsin; 29 years old.
- Alex Beam, Process Specialist at Domtar in Tell City, Indiana; 27 years old.
- Adebola Adedire, Account Manager at Solenis in Little Rock, Arkansas; 27 years old.
In addition to being recognized throughout 2015 in TAPPI's various publications and online, the winners will be invited to attend their division-specific TAPPI conference during 2015 to receive their award.
TAPPI congratulates the winners and thanks all of the Young Professionals who submitted nomination forms.